Wednesday, September 13, 2006

My Danish friends brough me this summer as a present the DVD Svend Asmussen et liv i musik. I was very suprised by this present as we met Svend Asmussen July 2005 in Denmark at the IAJRC Convention in the Palace Hotel in Copenhagen.Like the biography of Svend Asmussen,June Nights - Svend Asmussen's Life in Music, this DVD is made exclusively for the Danish market as it is in Danish without any subtitles at all. I wonder why they didn't make a choice to publish it with English subtitles.

The DVD could be devide in two parts: the first part is an interview with Svend ( in Danish) about his life, filled out with musical fragments and a second part in which Svend is to be seen as a musician through his career ( 1938 - 2003 ) as an entertainer and musician.

It is hard to label Svends musical heritage, he is a jazz musician, a comic, an entertainer.

The playing time of the DVD is extensive: The documentary contains an interview of 1 hours and 18 minutes and the music part contains 1 hours and 48 minutes.

I specially liked the last concert as reproduced on the DVD with his own trio, containing the great guitar player Jacob Fischer, Jesper Lundgaard on bass and Aage Tanggaard on drums, his regular accompanists as we heard playing in the Townhall of Copenhagen.

Svend Asmussen was born in Copenhagen in 1916, which means that he is now over 90 years old. Find a previous blog about our meeting with Svend Asmussen, July 2005, under the title bar

1 Comments:

Even though the DVD isn't with English subtitles the musical part of it is enjoyable and entertaining, I think.If readers unfamilar with the Danish language want to learn more about Asmussen's career, I suggest you to have a look at the following web:http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/svend/svendex.htmlCopy and paste to the adressline of your browser to go to the webstite.